Once and Always
by TolkienGirl
Summary: Peter was not only a king. (Peter, during and after Narnia-non-linear, all Pevensies make appearances, angst and canon character death abound, but no slash of course.)


**A/N: About time I wrote Peter Pevensie a fanfic.**

The Sky in Narnia is not like the one in Peter's world. From the North, his North, comes the weather and the steady swirling spread of constellations, charting across the turning of seasons like gems glinting in the dark recesses of a mine.

From the North comes the winds—the biting winds of winter to lift the heavy weight of summer air.

The cold makes Edmund's teeth set, but it is Peter who must guide the winds, Peter who must watch the sky.

It speaks to him in a way that the skies of England never did.

But then, in England, he never listened.

...

He is not forgiven like his brother, the lamb brought back to the fold. He is not the first believer, like his youngest sister, whose heart beat a path before them all.

He is Peter. He is the High King, and he was the boy who longed for war as all boys long for war, because they are brave and eager.

(Because they know nothing.)

...

The early days of their lives are like a dream. There is a scepter, a sword, a kingdom in Peter's hands. The sky is above him, and the land below. It is more real than anything he has ever known, even when it frightens him.

It does frighten him. He is frightened when he faces Miraz, with sweat and blood and metal on his tongue. He is frightened when Calormen threatens war. He is frightened when he sees the sleepless nights traced in Edmund's eyes, when his brother will not tell him why.

Peter the Magnificent, Peter the High King—Peter now of broad shoulders and a golden crown—Peter has often been afraid.

But Aslan knew that. Aslan knew that he when he chose him.

(And Aslan chose him.)

...

One night, Lucy returns from Archenland a week early, in a pounding storm. She shakes the raindrops out of her thick hair and laughs away the maids who rush to attend her.

"You rode at night? Alone?" Peter is a little grim—she may be a queen, but she is still his youngest sister. He feels as protective now as he ever has.

"I had to come _home_ ," she cries, hands outstretched to grasp his, to reassure him. "Aravis understood."

Later, when England is solid and green and gray around them, yet somehow less real, he might remember (if he remembers at all) that it was their mother's birthday that day.

For now, he snatches off his mantle and wraps it around her. "You still surprise me," Peter says, but he says it fondly, and Lucy smiles.

"I must admit that sometimes I grow lonely," she says. "And I just—I must be back here, with all of you wandering the halls of colored tile, looking out the windows at the sea…and do you know, Peter? I do believe, it isn't just the sea through those windows. It's the whole world. It makes me feel small again, a very child, in the best way."

"No more gallops through a storm," he orders, but he cannot help smiling at her, and he calls in the attendants to bring them both some tea.

...

They were meant to grow old in England, they were meant to grow old in Narnia, they were meant to grow _old_.

Or perhaps they were not. It was Aslan who said that it was no one's to know what might have happened.

...

He does not long for war when they return to England the second time, but he longs for Narnia. And he studies with Professor Kirke, in a little flat in London, where there is a suit of armor and many books but so few of the secrets of the old house.

The wardrobe survived the bombs, but Peter does not think he wants to see it.

It all makes Peter's chest hurt, the bombs and old house and old houses everywhere in ruins, the dusty floor under his hands and knees when they tumbled back into something everyone else called the only reality.

Narnia was and always will be many things to him, but he hates that sometimes, it feels like a dream.

...

In the country, one can see the stars. Constellations, their patterns different but their gleaming touch the same. There is one glorious day when the four of them venture out into the summer countryside, and picnic and laugh and talk until long after the sun goes down. Peter stretches out on the hillocks of meadow grass and gazes at the sky.

There is a part of him that still thinks of it as his own.

The next day, Susan leaves for America. Three months later, she comes back and will not speak of Narnia.

She never believes again, at least not in Peter's lifetime.

But then, Peter's life is not so very long.

...

Sometimes Lucy asks him he still believes. The question pains him, because he knows that she does not feel the need to ask Edmund. But then again, she knows it is too late to ask Susan, and so the fact that she asks him at all means that Lucy still has hope for him.

And so always, he bites down his pain and defenses, and tells her that he does.

Once a king of Narnia, always a king.

And Peter. Peter was not only a king.

He does not know it, but he is the last to speak to Susan. He does not tell her where he is going, meeting Edmund to collect the rings, to save the world that they were all a part of, but he does tell her that he is going away for a while.

Susan smiles, very bright, and does not say that she will miss him.

They were both afraid, in Narnia. And it was not because they were children. It is because they were older than they knew.

Susan will not say that she will miss him, but when she says goodbye, she holds on a second longer than he expects.

"Take care of yourself, Pete," she says. She hasn't called him Pete in a long time; not since they were kids.

"I will," he says, and it's not really his fault that he doesn't.


End file.
